A Deal Is Reached

You could see this coming a long way away. Neither party actually wanted a government “shutdown,” but both were under strong pressure to stick up for their constituencies. As of a few minutes ago, an agreement apparently has been reached for what remains of FY 2011. We will see in the morning what the deal is, but we are down to a pretty narrow margin.
The real battle will be fought between now and the fall–certainly over raising the debt limit, probably over the FY 2012 budget, although Democrats may well punt that one by refusing to adopt any budget at all. You ask, have they no shame? You’re kidding, right?
We will see the details of the agreement soon, but for now I congratulate Speaker Boehner and the House Republicans. Operating within the confines of a continuing resolution for a fiscal year that was already half over, and opposing a hostile Senate and White House, they bargained for and got quite a lot of consideration, bearing in mind that they could deal only with the “discretionary” part of the federal budget. How much consideration, we will know in the morning. But John Boehner’s basic judgment–that he should apply all the pressure he could to make the best possible deal on FY 2011, then close that deal and move on to the real battles that loom not far off–was right.

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